Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative human disorder characterized clinically by both motor (movement) and non-motor behavioral dysfunction, and histopathologically by the formation, deposition, accumulation and/or persistence of abnormal fibrillar protein deposits and/or aggregates. This accumulation of cytoplasmic Lewy bodies consisting of fibrils/aggregates of α-synuclein/NAC (non-AP component) is believed important in the pathogenesis of PD. Lewy bodies occur mostly in the substantia nigra and locus ceruleus sections of the brain stem and the olfactory bulb, but also, to a lesser extent, in other subcortical and cortical regions of the brain. Because of this specific localization in the brain, Lewy bodies interfere with the health and integrity of dopaminergic neuronal projections from the substantia nigra to the striatum, thus adversely affecting the ability to initiate, carry out and control voluntary movements. Lewy bodies present in these brain regions may also impact the production of acetylcholine and/or the balance between dopamine and acetylcholine in the brain, thus causing disruption in perception, thinking and behavior as well as other non-motor symptoms including loss of smell and sleep disorders.
Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by symptoms which display various degrees of manifestation. Such symptoms include progressive dementia, Parkinsonian movement difficulties, hallucinations, and increased sensitivity to neuroleptic drugs. As with Alzheimer's disease (AD), advanced age is considered to be a risk factor for DLB, with average onset typically between the ages of 50-85. Twenty percent of all dementia cases are caused by DLB and over 50% of PD patients develop Parkinson's Disease Dementia (PDD), a type of DLB. DLB may occur alone or in conjunction with other brain abnormalities, including those involved in AD and PD, as mentioned above. Currently, conclusive diagnosis of DLB is made during postmortem autopsy.
New agents or compounds able to bind and/or inhibit α-synuclein and/or NAC formation, deposition, accumulation and/or persistence, or disrupt pre-formed α-synuclein/NAC fibrils and/or aggregates (or portions thereof) are regarded as potential therapeutics for the treatment of Parkinson's and related synucleinopathies. Compounds which protect neurons from degeneration and damage associated with Parkinson's and related synucleinopathies could also prove useful as therapeutics.
Parkinson's Disease and Synucleinopathies
Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that is pathologically characterized by the presence of intracytoplasmic Lewy bodies (Lewy in Handbuch der Neurologie, M. Lewandowski, ed., Springer, Berlin, pp. 920-933, 1912; Pollanen et al., J. Neuropath. Exp. Neurol. 52:183-191, 1993), the major components of which are filaments consisting of α-synuclein (Spillantini et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95:6469-6473, 1998; Arai et al., Neurosci. Lett. 259:83-86, 1999), a 140-amino acid protein (Ueda et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90:11282-11286, 1993). Three dominant mutations in α-synuclein causing increased tendency to aggregate and resulting in familial early onset Parkinson's disease have been described suggesting that Lewy bodies contribute mechanistically to the degeneration of neurons in Parkinson's disease and related disorders (Polymeropoulos et al., Science 276:2045-2047, 1997; Kruger et al., Nature Genet. 18:106-108, 1998; Zarranz et al., Ann. Neurol. 55:164-173, 2004). Recently, in vitro studies have demonstrated that recombinant α-synuclein can indeed form Lewy body-like fibrils (Conway et al., Nature Med. 4:1318-1320, 1998; Hashimoto et al., Brain Res. 799:301-306, 1998; Nahri et al., J. Biol. Chem. 274:9843-9846, 1999; Choi et al., FEBS Lett. 576:363-368, 2004). Most importantly, both the A53T and the E46K Parkinson's disease-linked α-synuclein mutations accelerate this fibril-forming aggregation process, demonstrating that such in vitro studies may have relevance for Parkinson's disease pathogenesis. Alpha-synuclein aggregation and fibril formation fulfills the criteria of a nucleation-dependent polymerization process (Wood et al., J. Biol. Chem. 274:19509-19512, 1999). Alpha-synuclein recombinant protein, and non-Aβ component (known as NAC), which is a 35-amino acid peptide fragment of α-synuclein, both have the ability to form fibrils and/or aggregates when incubated at 37° C., and are positive with stains such as Congo red (demonstrating a red/green birefringence when viewed under polarized light) and Thioflavin S (demonstrating positive fluorescence) (Hashimoto et al., Brain Res. 799:301-306, 1998; Ueda et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90:11282-11286, 1993).
Synucleins are a family of small, presynaptic neuronal proteins composed of α-, β-, and γ-synucleins, of which only α-synuclein aggregates have been associated with several neurological diseases (Ian et al., Clinical Neurosc. Res. 1:445-455, 2001; Trojanowski and Lee, Neurotoxicology 23:457-460, 2002). The role of synucleins (and in particular, α-synuclein) in the etiology of a number of neurodegenerative diseases has developed from several observations. Pathologically, synuclein was identified as a major component of Lewy bodies, the hallmark inclusions of Parkinson's disease, and a fragment thereof was isolated from amyloid plaques of a different neurological disease, Alzheimer's disease. Biochemically, recombinant α-synuclein was shown to form fibrils and/or aggregates that recapitulated the ultrastructural features of α-synuclein isolated from patients with dementia with Lewy bodies, Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy. Additionally, the identification of mutations within the α-synuclein gene, albeit in rare cases of familial Parkinson's disease, demonstrated an unequivocal link between synuclein pathology and neurodegenerative diseases. The common involvement of α-synuclein in a spectrum of diseases such as Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, multiple system atrophy and the Lewy body variant of Alzheimer's disease has led to the classification of these diseases under the umbrella term of “synucleinopathies”.
NAC is a 35 amino acid fragment of α-synuclein that has the ability to form fibrils and/or aggregates either in vitro or as observed in the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease. The NAC fragment of α-synuclein is a relatively important therapeutic target as this portion of α-synuclein is believed crucial for formation of Lewy bodies as observed in all patients with Parkinson's disease, synucleinopathies and related disorders.
Currently available therapeutics such as carbidopa/levodopa (Sinemet, Stalevo, Parcopa), dopamine agonists (Apokyn, Parlodel, Neupro, Mirapex, Requip), anticholinergics (Cogentin, Artane), MAO-B inhibitors (Eldepryl, Carbex, Zelapar, Azilect), COMT inhibitors (Comtan, Tasmar), and other medications like Symmetrel and Exelon aim to slow the loss of dopamine or improve just the symptoms of the patient.
Discovery and identification of new compounds or agents as potential therapeutics to arrest fibril and/or aggregate formation, deposition, accumulation and/or persistence of α-synuclein in Parkinson's disease or provide neuroprotection are desperately sought.
Parkinson's disease α-synuclein fibrils and/or aggregates consist of a predominantly β-pleated sheet structure. Compounds of this invention have been shown to be effective in the inhibition of α-synuclein/NAC fibril formation and/or aggregates as well as in the disruption of pre-formed fibrils and/or aggregates, as shown from Examples provided herein. These compounds could serve as therapeutics for Parkinson's disease and other synucleinopathies.
Tau is a microtubule associated protein found primarily in neuronal axons. Tau hyperphosphorylation is a common characteristic of a number of dementing disorders collectively known as tauopathies, some of which have distinct tau pathology combined with other brain pathologies. Tauopathies include Alzheimer's disease (AD), Pick's disease (PiD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and familial frontotemporal dementia/Parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP-17), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/Parkinsonism-dementia complex, argyrophilic grain dementia, dementia pugilistic, diffuse neurofibrillary tangles with calcification, progressive subcortical gliosis and tangle only dementia. (Spillantini, M G and Goedert M, 1998 Trends Neurosci. October 21(10):428-33). In AD, tau pathology is typically limited to the neurons while other tauopathies can pathologically exhibit both neuronal and glial tau deposition (Higuchi, M, et al., 2002. Neuropsychopharmacology: The Fifth Generation of Progress, Chapter 94: Tau protein and tauopathy).
It has recently been postulated that tau protein may link Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease (Shulman, J. M. and DeJager, P. L. 2009 Nature Genetics 41(12):1261-1262). This study examined whether any genome wide association occurs between the two diseases and found that three genes and two new loci were linked to increased susceptibility.
Physiological phosphorylation of tau regulates the dynamics of the association of tau with tubulin, and thereby microtubule stability (Mazanetz. M. P. and Fischer, P. M. 2007. Nature Reviews 6:464-479). The stabilization of the microtubules in axons ensures that maintain their function for axonal transport, growth and branching (Bulic, B et al., 2009 Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 48:2-15). Hyperphosphorylation and misfolding of the tau protein is thought to be the causative factor in abnormal intracellular aggregation leading ultimately to neuronal dysfunction. Protein aggregates have been found to be toxic to neurons.
Abnormal intraneuronal tau aggregation has three basic pathological manifestations; neurofibrillary tangles (NFT's), neuropil threads (NT's) and the argyrophilic dystrophic neurite plaques (Braak, H and Braak, E, Neurobio. of Aging. 1997 18(4):351-357). Structurally, the NFT's are principally comprised of paired helical filaments (PHF) comprised of two filamentous tau proteins twisted around one another with a crossover repeat of 80 nm and a width of 8-20 nm (Li, D., et al., 2008. Computational Biology 4(12) and Kidd, M 1963 Nature, 197:192). There are six stages (Braak stages I-VI) of tau deposition in the brain, which progress temporally at defined anatomical locations with the initial stages characterized primarily by the deposition of NFT's and NT's and the secondary stages further accompanied by NP (Braak, 1997). In Alzheimers Disease and other neuropathies, Braak's stages correlate well with clinical disease progression as demonstrated by increasing cognitive dysfunction. Severe cortical destruction which occurs around stages III-IV coincides with the first manifestations of the clinical onset of AD. Although no tau mutations have been identified in AD there is a strong correlation between NFT density and cognitive decline in AD (Brunden, K. R., Trojanowski, J. Q., and Lee, V. M. 2009 Nature Reviews 8:783-93).
New biomarkers and models of their temporal characteristics are becoming even more useful for the diagnosis and characterization of AD (Jack et al., 2010. Lancet 9:119-28). Specifically, tau deposition is associated with neurodegeneration in AD and an increase in CSF tau is an important indicator of tau pathologic changes and correlates well with clinical disease severity. A decrease in FDG-PET correlates well with increased CSF tau and both are valid indicators of synaptic dysfunction (Jack et al, ibid). This model of biomarker ordering, especially in mildly cognitive impaired individuals, has important implications for clinical trials. Potential therapeutics could be more accurately assessed for efficacy is they are able to change the trajectory of cognitive deterioration and individuals might be more selectively chosen for trials (Jack et al, ibid).
It is presently not known if tau is a causative factor in disease but it is likely that either a loss or gain for function results in pathology. In FTLD17, a missense mutation affects the alternative splicing of tau resulting in the disruption of the ratio of the 4R to 3R tau isoform. More of the 4R isoform with an extra repeat of the microtubule binding region may lead to overstabilization of the microtubules resulting in disease. Other post-translational events such as alterations in kinase activity and glycosylation could also cause hyperphosphorylation and result in disease or alternatively proteolytic cleavage could produce truncated tau products more inclined to aggregate (Brunden, ibid).
Recently tau toxicity has been re-emphasized as an important therapeutic target in neurodegerative tauopathies (Keystone Symposium, March 2009). Routes for developing therapeutics are either directed to inhibiting tau-phosphorylation kinases or seeking compounds effective in the modulation of tau aggregation and/or the dissolution or disruption of tau aggregates which may prove equally useful or more specific for the alleviation of tauopathies (Rafii, M. and Aisen, P. 2009 BMC Medicine 7:7). A recent paper surveyed the efficacy of several classes of compounds for their ability to prevent tau aggregation and disaggregate pre-formed tau fibrils (Bulic et al.). Although there are general concerns regarding the toxicity of disassembled fibrils, Bulic et al., were able to show that reversing tau aggregation resulted in increased cell viability.